


Your name written on my lifeline

by Leu (Karaii)



Series: Naruto rarepair generator [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Analphabetism, Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Anbu Yamato | Tenzou, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karaii/pseuds/Leu
Summary: Cat had never been formally taught to read or write, being lab-grown and tube-fed, so Hound subtly points to words on maps and pamphlets and signs and nonchalantly says them out loud for Cat’s benefit, expecting him to keep up. Hound makes fun of Cat for a lot of things, but of this only when no one else is around.(Kakashi/Hound is 18, Tenzo/Cat is 14.)





	Your name written on my lifeline

“What is this?” Cat gestures at the field where fifteen men appear to be hunched over, laying what could possibly be mines. “An odd location for a trap.”

Hound’s mask glints oddly in the gloom. “No. This is a rice farm, Tenzo.”

“Today my codename is Cat, senpai.” A pause. “…A rice farm?”

“Yes. Have you never seen a paddy field, before?”

Silence: the answer is an obvious no. Hound scratches the back of his head like a dog itching with flees.

“Well. They grow white rice here.”

Cat looks closer. “Rice,” he repeats, and slowly remembers his first taste of white rice. A nameless ROOT long since dead had once shared her portion of white rice with him. It had tasted thick and glossy and wonderful, very much unlike the tasteless gruel Orochimaru-sama had fed him through a nasogastric tube for most of his infancy. He’d pierced her with his shaky mokuton in fifteen places to earn himself a name.

“My ancestors were farmers,” Hound says, like sharing this is nothing. “It’s in my name.” He takes Cat’s hand like it’s nothing, too, and traces the kanji for  _Hatake_  on his palm, and then he repeats it in the hiragana characters Cat is more familiar with.

Cat had never been formally taught to read or write, being lab-grown and tube-fed, so Hound subtly points to words on maps and pamphlets and signs and nonchalantly says them out loud for Cat’s benefit, expecting him to keep up. Hound makes fun of Cat for a lot of things, but of this only when no one else is around.

 _Hatake_ , Cat mouths behind his mask. “Again,” he says out loud. “Please.”

Hound complies, and Cat memorizes it dutifully.

“Show me,” Hound says, and flips his palm over. “Write it.”

Cat echoes the strokes Hound traced through his life line.  _Hatake_. He tries to remember his lessons, and then writes  _Kakashi_  in hiragana. The scarecrow among the rice fields.

“Not bad,” Hound says, and reaches over to ruffle Cat’s hair like he’s one of his ninken. “Good boy.”

“Senpai,” Cat says, long-suffering, but he doesn’t draw away.


End file.
